Video Exploring Gluten Free Gravy

[jesse_the_k]

Adam Ragusea aragusea was a public radio reporter, is now a journalism professor, and has recently become a YouTuber talking about home cooking with a healthy dose of science. I was thrilled by last year’s Alternative Starches: How to thicken sauces without flour. He demonstrates making gravy with

• flours: rice, potato, and corn (US: corn starch)
• starches: tapioca, arrowroot
• gums: xanthan and agar agar.

He also explores how some gums maintain their staying power at all temperatures, which finally explained why wheat flours sometimes show up in ice creams.

I’ve been using cornstarch and arrowroot to make slurry gravies for decades. Adam blew my mind by making a traditional browned roux with both potato and rice flours, and they look great! Adam summarizes:

If you need to make a gluten-free gravy, you can try making your roux with rice flour or potato starch — I'd do the rice flour because it's more opaque. That makes a really delicious gravy. Nobody is gonna miss the wheat.

Content notes: although he has sponsors, YouTube is running US campaign ads to start and randomly in the middle.

Have you made fat-and-flour based sauces with gluten-free ingredients? Which flour did you use? Please share any hard-won lessons or handy tips.

Comments

[topaz_eyes]

I used to thicken gravy with corn starch all the time, but leftover gravy would start to separate within 24 hours in the fridge. I switched to rice flour for thickening a few years ago, and it's made a world of difference. Leftover rice flour gravy holds together much longer in the fridge. Rice flour is comparable to wheat flour in terms of thickening.

I also find rice flour easier to use. With corn starch, if you don't suspend it thoroughly in water before adding to the fat, it settles into a non-Newtonian fluid at the bottom that is difficult to re-suspend. I don't have that problem with rice flour.

[runpunkrun]

This looks like a great resource!

[loligo]

I once made gumbo with a rice flour roux and it turned out quite well. Time to buy more rice flour and try it again. (Usually I just have premade GF flour mixes on hand, not single ingredient flours. )

[ironymaiden]

(haven't watched the video yet, thanks for sharing.)

my go-to for holiday meal gravy uses xanthan gum with an immersion blender to mix it into pan juices, stock, or bouillon/meat base. with the immersion blender there are no worries about lumps and i can atomize some flavors from the pan by keeping a few stray mushrooms, onions, bits of meat, etc. you have to add the xanthan powder incrementally and keep testing for consistency since xanthan can go from pleasing to uncanny slime quite quickly. it's better to under-shoot as it will set a bit more as it cools.
what i like about the xanthan is that it has no perceptible flavor on its own, so you get a very pure and punchy meatiness as long as you have a flavorful liquid to start with. i am able to have gluten myself and i've come to prefer this treatment over a traditional flour-thickened gravy. (plus it NEVER fails to thicken.) it's always a hit with company.

[nerakrose]

Oh man, one of the things I miss the most from Scandinavia is maizena gravy thickener. It's a naturally gluten free gravy thickener consisting mostly of potato starch (bit of lactose, bit of rice flour, and if brown then a colour, and an emulsifier (E471) (the brand obv specialises in corn starch, hence the name). I can't find it anywhere in the UK so I'm watching this thread 👀👀 I haven't had reason to make gravy yet since moving here, but I'm vaguely planning on making Scandinavian Christmas dinner for my housemates and I'm now sorely missing maizena 🙃🙃🙃 I'm considering making my own mix based on the ingredients list on the maizena box but we'll see.

I've now watched the video and I think my plan is def going to be using a mix of potato starch and rice flour to make gravy - I'll try the roux method, that sounds tasty af.

[j00j]

I've successfully used this rice flour based recipe https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-gluten-free-gravy-237562 . I do corn starch sometimes to quickly thicken a gravy or strew, but as topaz_eyes comments, there are some non-Newtonian issues and also it gets Real Weird if you freeze it.

[gatheringrivers]

Ooooo thank you!

Rice flour, huh? I'll have to pick some up, that's worth a shot...

[mific]

I use cornflour or potato flour. Cornflour works fine as long as it’s mixed well with cold water before adding.

[agoodwinsmith]

Thank you!